Surge in subsidy bill to feed cronies, says Anwar

Hazlan Zakaria 1:41PM Jun 20, 2012

Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim is questioning whether the rising federal subsidies are for the benefit of the rakyat or for crony companies.

He pointed to the ever-increasing fuel, toll and sugar subsidies that have ballooned several times over in the latest supplementary budget.

"When you hear ‘subsidy' you think it is for the rakyat, but I would like to contend that it is for the cronies," Anwar argued at a press conference in the Parliament lobby today.

Anwar (right) contended that the sugar subsidy is given to producers, the toll subsidy to toll operators and many fuel subsidies go to big companies including independent power producers.

None of which, he argued, goes directly to the rakyat.

Earlier in the House, Anwar hit out at what he said is the all too frequent reoccurrence of a supplementary bill at every parliamentary seating.

“Is our treasury projection so weak?” he asked, pondering over why budget overruns are so common.

Drawing on his experience as finance minister and what was done in other countries, Anwar said that supplementary bills shouldn’t be a casual occurrence but only tabled during crisis situations.

“In Japan, they only tabled the supplementary bill after the tsunami,” he related.

Anwar urged the Finance Ministry to first explain this “laxness” in planning and projections which caused such recurring overruns despite no harrowing crisis befalling the country.

He also accused the additional expenses to be nothing more than election gimmicks that the BN government is using to try and buy the rakyat’s support, obscuring major weaknesses in the nation’s finances.

Neither are they expenses that can help build up the country and attract more investment, he claimed, calling them nothing more then just pouring money to maintain the status quo.

Anwar stressed that what is needed is fiscal discipline and strong financial acumen, something which he doubts our current government has in abundance.

The state of Malaysia’s finances and budget overruns has been regular fodder for Anwar and the opposition in their criticism of the government.





However, Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is also finance minister, has often brushed this aside as mere opposition propaganda, maintaining that despite continuing annual deficits, Malaysia’s financial health is not on the rocks.

 Putrajaya’s move to spend RM8 billion more for subsidies has led the opposition to accuse the government of using public funds to benefit cronies instead of the public.

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (picture) pointed out while debating the supplementary supply bill that the sum was nearly 40 per cent more than the original allocation in Budget 2012, specifically pointing to the increase in sugar and toll subsidies as “ensuring the profitability of crony companies.”

“I am certain in this case, the profit to the crony companies is excessive,” the opposition leader said of the RM343 million added to the initial RM446 million to subsidise tolls.

He also said that as Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary’s Tradewinds is one of two companies that control the local sugar market, the RM367 million added to the RM200 million allocated under Budget 2012 was not proportional to the actual increase in sugar prices.

“We want to know who actually benefits from these subsidies. They say it’s for the public. Show us what are the profits of these companies,” the Permatang Pauh MP said.